Ateliê

Intervención en el Espacio Ateliê
San Pablo, 2005 
Cintas de polyester
Colaboración: Rafael Campos-Rocha, Silvia Jabalí 


  Ateliê 397 es el nombre del espacio alternativo que coordinan los artistas Rafael Campos-Rocha y Silvia Jabalí en la ciudad de San Pablo, Brasil. Ateliê está en una casa, a la que se accede por un largo pasillo que comunica a un patio, de 12 mts. de largo, que es específicamente el espacio donde se muestran los trabajos de los artistas. Sobre el lado izquierdo, una enorme pared medianera, de 8 mts. de alto, a la derecha, el estudio de Rafael, y al fondo, el estudio de Silvia.
Trabajé con la arquitectura, con esa suerte de caja gris que era el patio. Primero intenté trabajar sobre las paredes, luego percibí el espacio transparente entre las paredes, y lo corté, le delimité una suerte de “rodaja”. El desarrollo fue entonces puramente formal, muy relajado para mí.
Elegí trabajar con los extremos de la caja, incluyendo la escalera e incorporando la pared azul del fondo como una separación dentro del patio, proponiendo su continuidad detrás de la pared azul. Esto era real, en términos estructurales; pero en términos de uso, la pared azul separaba dos mundos. El color fue fundamental, el gris de fondo me permitió un corte tajante. Trabajé con 3000 metros de cinta de poliéster color flúo por que aumentaba la sensación de no-pertenencia que tuvo la intervención, que un poco parecía, o mejor dicho, yo la sentía, como un ser intergaláctico que encontró allí el único lugar donde posarse.
Luego el color inundó las habitaciones, tiñó la casa de verde; desde la puerta de calle se vería el brillo estridente de las cintas. Vino la experiencia real, el cuerpo transitando el patio. Toda representación posterior es prácticamente imposible, imposible relatar la piel verde, la sensación de ocupación del espacio, las distintas luces durante el día, rebotando entre las cintas y las paredes, o sea, infinitos verdes, infinitas sombras.
La arquitectura tiene su modo de devolución de lo que los hombres le provocan, el espacio abierto, la relación con el cielo, la luz de las diferentes horas del día. La obra se hecha a rodar y las cosas suceden. 

For English, please scroll down.

Ateliê 397 is the name of the alternative space run by artists Rafael Campos-Rocha and Silvia Jabalí in São Paulo, Brazil. It is located at the heart of Vila Madalena, a medium-class neighborhood. Just like what happens in other cities all over the world, it was recently advertised by real estate brokers as a fashionable neighborhood, so the neighbors’ profile changed a lot in a few months. Fortunately, Rua Wizard Street, where Ateliê is located, preserved its simple style with family-run stores.  
Ateliê is in a house you enter trough a long corridor that overlooks a yard. The yard, 12 meters long, is specifically the room in which the artists’ work is shown. On the left side, a huge wall, 8 meters high. Rafael’s studio is located to the right, and Silvia’s studio is at the end.
The development of this project was quite strenuous for me, because I had no real access to the place, only by photographs, but now I understand that I needed to learn to work this way. There was another doubtful matter: I was intervening a private space, it was quite ambiguous because it was not the artists’ “dwelling”, but their studio; it was not a gallery, but a transitional place.
Although I looked for information on my own by previous visits to the city, I unwisely decided to include issues related to the relationships between São Paulo inhabitants in my work. Nevertheless, after spending a few days in that city, I could surely make observations about power relations in São Paulo’s society.
All these circumstances took me to build up my work based on the architecture, and I could operate from there without any risk of misunderstood feelings about the community.
I focused on the yard, which was some kind of huge grey box. I tried to work on the walls first, and then I perceived the transparent space between the walls, so I cut it, delimiting a “slice” of sorts. The intervention development was merely formal; it felt utterly relaxing to me.
I decided to work with the outermost sides of the “box”, including the stairs and integrating the blue wall at the end as some kind of separation from the yard, suggesting that the yard extended behind that wall. In architectural terms, it was actually real, that is, the yard was divided by the blue wall and continuous behind it. But in terms of everyday use, that wall separated two different worlds (Rafael’s and Silvia’s micro-worlds).
Color was essential; the deep grey allowed me strong contrasts. I worked with 3000 meters of fluorescent polyester ribbon that increased the sensation of non-belonging to the intervention. It looked like an intergalactic being that found a place to rest there.
Then color filled the studios and the kitchen, it dyed the house green; you could see the strong brightness of the ribbons from the street. The real experience happened, the body going by the yard into the green light.
All further representational attempt is quite impossible, it is impossible to describe the green glare on the skin, the sensation of unavailable space, the changing luminosity during the day,  bouncing between the ribbons and the walls, that is, infinite green, infinite shadows.